by Kim MacMonkey
(05/26/04)

No one would ever guess that Marianne was the kind of woman who dreamed each night of hot fudge sundaes. She wore her practicality like a suit of armor. She polished it regularly with flu shots and sturdy houseplants. She reinforced her reasonable image with sensible shoes, a tenure-track job and a squeaky-clean credit report.

The boy who worked in her neighborhood ice cream parlor, Ricky, was a terrible flirt. "When you come back next, Marianne," his tropical accent making her name sound like an exotic shade of blue, "you will come to me as a woman."

He said this every day for months and every day she laughed and blushed and left with no reply. At night she thought about Ricky's taunts, about the time he wiped the drizzle of mango sorbet from her chin and how she felt the touch elsewhere. At night she would eat a practical meal and dream of cold fruit and chocolate and a flirting brown boy.

Daydreams of gelato and nudity pervaded the Iowa library where she'd spent her three-month sabbatical. Marianne found herself doodling Ricky's name with hers in the margins of her journals. All her idle sketches seemed vaguely pornographic. "Ice cream," she murmured as she drove her bland rental car to the Des Moines airport. "Ice cream," she said decisively as the plane deposited her safely back home at LaGuardia. "Ice cream?" she wondered queasily as she arrived at her Greenwich Village apartment.

The morning of the day she'd chosen was a slow motion carousel of doubts. She'd done everything twice.The choice of perfume, the arch of her eyebrows, even the simple contents of her purse seemed to bend under the weight of nerves and anticipation. She replayed her life that morning over and over, the sensible boyfriends, the unexciting vacations, until she gathered her wits and packed up her heart and walked shakily out onto the bustling street.

Imagine her dismay when she discovered the ice cream parlor and Ricky were long gone, replaced by a trendy Cuban-themed cigar bar. She tucked her linen skirt under her as she sank desperately into the leather wing chair nearest the door. The thrilling novelty of not wearing underwear was rapidly waning.

"I could bring you some cheesecake perhaps," a deep voice suggested from behind the empty bar. While it looked delicious, sweet desserts in whatever form were not the reason she had come here half-dressed and breathless.

"I have seen this look of yours before. The children, they miss the sweets." He crouched near the arm of the chair, near her bare leg and the beaded anklet she had purchased in anticipation at the airport. "One bite," he encouraged, "and all you expected will be forgotten."

He leaned forward as he guided the spoon to her lips. The button on his shirt pressed into her bare knee. Her skirt was pushed up by this close contact, revealing more leg than she was comfortable showing.

Her teeth closed on the spoon and the flavor explosion pushed into her ears. Lemon, custard, strawberry. The texture was creamy and full. She felt it in her belly -- and lower. She felt heavy and sweet and seductive. She throbbed at her core.

The bartender stood and molded her hands around the cool plate. The spoon was still wedged in her mouth. As she swallowed she felt sensuous as never before. Her eyes held his for eight long ticks of the carved wooden clock behind her.

She felt almost ridiculous as she sat in the big chair and watched a stranger, now once again stationed behind the long dark bar, wash brandy snifters. She scooped progressively smaller portions to delay her departure and moaned quietly after each incredible bite. She realized she wouldn't regret it if he heard her. He, too, appeared to be taking his time in his task. He wiped each vessel thoroughly, covering each spot two or three times until the glass squeaked under his fingers. He broke eye contact only when he turned to place it on the rack behind him.

Marianne examined the plate closely, hoping to find some forgotten morsel or wayward strawberry. Finding no reason to linger, she very practically rose and straightened her skirt.

As she walked toward the gleaming mahogany bar she was aware of the dampness between her legs, the flutter of the ceiling fan against the silk of the blouse covering her unencumbered breasts, and the gaze of the deep voiced, deep skinned man who had abandoned all pretense of work to watch her approach.

In response to her thanks and the empty plate he placed two empty snifters on the wide wooden bar. He pulled the stopper from a bottle and willed tawny liqueur into each rounded glass. He watched her with such intensity as he poured that even when she closed her eyes she could feel the weight of his queries against her cheeks.

"You are meeting someone?" he asked.

"No." Her voice was paper-thin. "It was a mistake."

"You had plans with this someone?"

She gulped the brandy in the worst possible way. The weight of the hotel key in her purse made her stupid. She sputtered like a Fiat in the rain. Yes she had plans, the key screamed. She had a golden brocade hotel room and a bucket of champagne. She had six condoms and a bottle of massage oil.

She had shaved legs and no underwear and was beyond being thwarted by bad timing.

In an instant all reason fled. All practicality was pushed aside by the aroma of tobacco and the rush of alcohol propelling her hormones like fireworks on Castro's birthday.

With barely a fumble she slapped the key on the bar.

All other sounds faded in the echo of plastic on wood as the bartender read the name of the nearby hotel. Practical or no, Marianne forgot to breathe. It was the most basic, most healthful of all human activities and yet knowledge of it escaped her. She was suffocated by butterflies and doubts.

The bartender shouted toward the back room in Spanish as he tossed his apron down next to the empty brandy glasses. He slid the room key into his shirt pocket.

The silence between them was unreasonably subtle. It was not tense. It had no second thoughts or apprehensions. The silence simmered for two blocks, instigating vague feelings and sensations but nothing concrete in this concrete jungle.

It was the bartender who broke first under the pressure of this silence. Less than half a block from the golden brocade room he nudged her into an alley and eased her back against a granite wall. He was like smoke himself, filling every gap, every breath. He inhaled Marianne's practicality and wits and exhaled Latino steam. He reached down and pulled her sedately seductive skirt up over her waist.

He built a nest between her thighs, tangling his fingers in her curls and delving deeper with softness and industry. He traced line after line on her skin. He drew a picture of the nest he envisioned. He drew a map to his destination and there he built a space to plant himself, a temple to hatch his desire and wealth of spirit.

Marianne was his steadfast tree. She was rooted to the spot. Her leaves trembled in the breeze he generated. Her sap flowed freely.

Against her thigh his erection grew. He made no attempt to expose himself as he had exposed her. He was satisfied, for now, to rub like a cat and purr against her neck and breasts.

A delivery truck chased them out of the alley and into the hotel. Marianne patted her hair like a debutante. She wanted desperately to look like her old self and to be neat and proper and self-preserved.

That was a lie.

The smile she gave him was as inescapable and voracious as the Grand Canyon.The practical woman she had been at breakfast was swallowed in a chasm of improbability, tumbled down through cheesecake and smoke. That sensible woman was left in the wake of a building orgasm that had its genesis outside the downtown branch office of a national bank.

The silence in the elevator was as subtle as a monkey in a room full of tambourines. She could hear him panting like a dog in the opposite corner. The mirrored box smelled exclusively of sex. It overpowered even the expensive perfume of the pair of shoppers riding with them. They, too, heard the silence of the aromatic tambourines. They glanced at the handsome bartender in the corner and shuffled surreptitiously.

The bartender fumbled with the key card in the lock. He tried three times to gain access. After the last attempt he looked on the verge of crying or breaking it down in Hulk-like rage. Marianne was thrilled and inspired by his ineptitude. It put them on equal footing. She stepped between the bartender and the door and touched his lips with the sweetest kiss she could muster.

She opened the door herself. She opened the door and closed it behind them.

She closed the door behind the unknown "them" and paced, feeling panicky. The room was both too small and too big. It was a universe, a language barrier, a social misfit, an unmarked driveway and an opportunity all at once.

Marianne appealed to her practicality and reason. She examined the closet, the pillows and the bathroom tissue.

The bartender was not confused. He did not wander. He sat on the windowsill and calmly removed his shoes. His shirt fell next, button by button.

Naked, he poured the champagne.

Something in the sound of the bubbly nectar in crystal spoke to her. It was a sound only dogs could hear, or women in heat. It was pitched above everyday particulars and cried out for an answer. She responded by swallowing it. She made the bubble and sparkle part of herself and was invigorated. Tingling, she barely noticed her clothes being removed.

She followed the path he blazed with his tongue. He drew a berried nipple between his smooth white teeth, and as he moved across her body she followed with her fingers. She had no conscious reason for this, but in her heart she suspected she was fumbling for some verification of reality or a way to imprint this memory on the future.Yes, she confirmed with her own digits. Yes, he was here. Yes, this was real. She could feel the cooling moisture of his tongue. She could smell his cologne on her fingers.

The bartender made it easier to follow by repeating the same steps over and over. When mouth met finger he drew them in too, entangling and saturating with sensation.He covered her delicate slim fingers with his dark thick hands and rubbed them against her. He groaned at the sight of their hands together on her round pink breasts.

Suddenly patience fled the room. Its time was done. Marianne was unpopped popcorn. The bartender was the magnified sun.

He grabbed her purse from the bedside table and overturned it with a casual shake. His lower body never left hers. With a long brown arm he selected a condom. "Bite," he said and ripped it open with Marianne's teeth.

Marianne rolled the condom over the bartender's unprecedented penis. He nipped her shoulder and thrust forward against her hand.

Now sheathed, his patience returned. He meandered and dawdled. Marianne was still popcorn. Each touch of his tongue or thigh or ankle heated her brittle exterior. She gasped and grappled. He lurked and lingered.

When she looked into his eyes they were misty and laughing. The bartender was clearly and intentionally trying to drive her mad.

Marianne, shy and pliable in many aspects of her life, was at her core a reasonable and practical woman. The fact of the matter was that the situation called for reasonably drastic action.

She grabbed the bartender's firm brown ass and pushed herself expeditiously against him.

At the instant of their coupling they both made the same sound. It was the international sound of surprise and delight and awe. It sounded much like a ripe papaya dropped from a great height to hit a large feather pillow, or perhaps the French word for eggs.

He laughed as he wrapped her legs around him. He sank his nose into her neck. She squeezed her legs higher on his back and sniffed him, too.The bartender smelled of aged tobacco, private label brandy and jojoba shampoo. Marianne smelled of jet lag, pheromones and fresh cut grass.

Her release was a great beast he kept at bay. He charged it, thrusting rhythmically, building and climbing. Marianne wondered if they had bullfighting in Cuba. Her fingers fluttered down to the place of their joining. She loved the slide of his penis, so hot, between her fingers. Her vulva was wet and tropically hot, and the fingers seemed the only rational element in the insane equation of lust and pursuit. She could feel the beast in her belly rushing up to join the mating. It would gore them with its power and raging blood. Just at that moment the bartender pulled his virtual cape out of his limitless bag of tricks and changed directions.

He withdrew completely, leaving her squirming and panting. Actually drooling on the hotel's nice white pillows. He watched her as he sat back on his haunches. The beast stood at the edge of her peripheral vision snorting and pawing the dusty earth.

"Will you beg me?" the bartender asked. He bent to lick the inside of her knee.

His voice was nearly enough to make her come. Of course, if he knew this she imagined she would be deprived of it the remainder of the voyage. "Por favor," she said, trying to sound sexy with her high school Spanish vocabulary. "Yo soy loco. Mucho loco. Por favor, senor, por..."

The bartender ended her speech with a mighty thrust. He swallowed her favor and her flavor and her will and her sense of time or place.She gave in to the beast. The orgasm built from her gut and she clung to it and rode. She was left gleefully trampled behind its thundering hooves. The bartender clenched and dove and sweated and yelled. His words were beyond her comprehension and, of course, much too loud for such a sedate hotel.

Hours later, she stumbled back to the cigar bar. Nine forty-three in the evening found the place in full swing. Sultry music competed with smoke for supremacy. She was sticky between her legs and rumpled beyond recognition, but she liked her new look. She believed strongly in being truthful, and truthfully, she looked like a woman who engaged in afternoon trysts. All eyes were on her knowing and nodding, but she had purpose in her step and ignored them all.

The bartender had left his card on her pillow next to a pile of four condoms. He had taken one as a souvenir or an invitation. A pool of massage oil had settled in her navel. Jet lag had robbed her of his good-bye and she needed at least another look to close this chapter and return to her life. It was only practical that she come here tonight.

Marianne sat at a high round table in the furthest corner of the room and watched. She caught sight of the bartender several times but always he was surrounded by a crowd of laughing men with thick mustaches. A lovely young woman brought her the requested glass of wine and asked after her needs once or twice but Marianne had nothing really to say. She should leave, she told herself as the hour crept on.

The space between her legs had completed the journey from adventurous to pathetic and she longed for a shower and a cup of tea. She didn't smoke. The whole idea was completely unreasonable, disgusting, expensive, and impractical. The litany of rationalizations ran through her mind unhindered. She placed a few bills on the table and stood, her knees weak from exhaustion and deflated pride.

"Wait!" came the cry behind her. The beautiful waitress was running as fast as her heels would take her. "He asked me to bring this, but I got delayed."

The waitress held the biggest, gooiest hot fudge sundae Marianne had ever seen. It was bigger than a reasonable person would ever imagine ordering. It was cradled in a crystal fruit bowl. Mountains of ice cream in lovely pinks, creams and browns and fudge spilled over the waitress's hands as she passed it to Marianne. Cherries cascaded to the floor.

The waitress pulled a spoon from her apron. Marianne barely muttered a thanks as she accepted it. The bartender lifted a smoky glass from across the room. He patted his shirt pocket and winked.

No, Marianne thought, I don’t smoke. She licked the side of her sticky thumb. But it certainly wasn’t too late to start.

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